Snailtrail is a simple iphone application that allows you to store you co-ordinates at any time...without having to leave the application running or the GPS always tracking. It stores the co-ordinates persistently on your phone until you clear them - even if they phone gets turned off - your co-ordinates will still be there.
You can take the co-ordinates and use in any mapping programme or GPS programme which takes point co-ordinates.
You can store co-ordinates of points of interest e.g. undertake a student survey of plants, buildings or any point of interest.
To view your route in Google Earth
After emailing yourself the co-ordinates simply copy them and replace those in the template KML file you can download
here.....save the file and double click it to open your route with Google Earth - note Google Earth must be installed on your computer to do this!
Here are some more detailed instructions
How to
Talking a walk with your iphone......around your campus, your garden etc....
Step 1 - start Snail Trail and watch the co-ordinates - you'll see after a few moments that the co-ordinates should settle and stop changing - this is where the GPS part of the iphone has found you - it sometimes can take a few seconds to a few minutes to pick up the co-ordinates and depends on the GPS satellites in the sky which your iphone can "see". The GPS satellites orbit and there are always a number of them visible - the more visible to your phone the quicker you can generally get a fix on your position. If you are in a built up area sometimes it may not see any of the satellites - this is common to all GPS systems.
Step 2 - Make sure that you have cleared the database by going to the settings screen
Step 3 - Add a point by clicking the add way point button on the tracks screen.
Step 4 - You can quit the application now and turn the phone off...there is no need to leave it on as with other iphone GPS apps because you are not constantly tracking your position - it is up to you when you want to store points.
Step 5 - Walk/ride/travel somewhere.....this is up to you.....for example you may want to talk a walk in the countryside and record interesting points on your route.
Step 6 - Switch on the phone - start Snailtrail and again wait for a nice GPS fix and click add waypoint......
Repeat until you have collected all the points you want etc.....
The benefit of my application over the other GPS ones is that you do not need to leave the phone on and therefore wasting battery whilst you can track your position over time. Obviously it is not tracking every move you make - but in most cases that is a level of detail that is not really needed.
Step 7
So assuming you've got some points stored, always useful to check the Waypoints tab and you can see the co-ordinates stored - note this screen does scroll and only shows your last 50 stored points, the rest are still in the database. When you are at home, or perhaps on your way home, type in your email address on the settings screen and push the Email co-ordinates button. This will start your normal iphone email and the co-ordinates you have stored will appear in the message. Just hit send and the email will be sent to the email address you entered.
Step 8
When you receive the email on your home computer you will see the co-ordinates and a link in the email to download a sample Google Earth KML file.
Step 9
Download the KML file and save to your desktop
Step 10
Open the KML file by right clicking and select open with Notepad if you are in Windows or TextEdit if on a Macintosh....on a Mac you select Open With (and assuming you have Google Earth installed) it will just say Google Earth....select the other option and you will see a list of Apps on your Mac - scroll down and you'll find TextEdit.......
Eventually you should see the KML file - as per the image on this page..... . Have a look at this and note there is a co-ordinate there of -0.0000,-0.00000......scroll down this email until after the KML file for more instructions
Step 11
Go back to your email and select the co-ordinates - just the numbers and copy them....
Step 12
Go back to the textediting programme and delete the -0.000,-0.0000 co-ordinates and just paste in your collected co-ordinates.
Step 13
Save the file
Step 14
Double click the file and assuming you have Google Earth installed on your computer the route will be displayed !
